Wichita, Jewish community team up for rare addition to Century II’s holiday light display

The city’s annual holiday display of jolly lighted Christmas characters in front of Century II has always been reliably unchanged: a happy waving snowman, a smiling dragon donning a Santa hat, a rigid saluting soldier.

This week, though, the display on Kennedy Plaza got an addition, the first one in years. On Wednesday, city workers put up three new lighted structures — a giant menorah accompanied by two dreidels. The structures, which represent the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, face Douglas on the west side of Century II, sitting just in front of A. Price Woodard Park and just to the east of the Douglas Avenue Bridge.

The addition of the decorations was the result of a three-year campaign by a local mother of five — Maggie Pichinte — who also is a member of the the Hebrew Congregation of Wichita. It all started back in December 2016, on Sara’s fifth birthday, she said.